Physics 134 — Optics Laboratory

A laboratory-lecture course on the techniques and theory of classical and modern optics. Topics of study include diffraction, interferometry, Fourier transform spectroscopy, grating spectroscopy, lasers, and coherence of waves. In addition, the course develops the theory of sample variance, nonlinear least-squares fitting, the \( \chi^2 \) criterion for goodness of fit, and normalized residuals. The course is more loosely structured than earlier laboratory courses, and seeks to develop skills in experimental design and execution with flexible, multi-part experiments. The available experiments are